Chapter 38 The Mountain Pool and the Haunted Mansion 5

Chapter 38 The Mountain Pool and the Haunted Mansion 5

Feng Bujue continued to move forward. The scary encounter from before did not affect him at all; he powered on like usual, feeling no extra pressure. It did not take him long to reach the end of the tunnel, to a cramped and damp underground cellar.

There was a jail door inside the cellar, which was nothing surprising. In olden times, the cellars of these types of large houses were normally used as a jail, and now it was used as a place to store a coffin before its burial. The floor and walls were carefully covered with a copper layer. The iron jail door was surprisingly heavy. As it swung open, the chain would create a sharp creaking sound. There was a coffin sitting in the middle of the room. Standing a few steps away from it, he shone his flashlight on it. The coffin lid was not nailed shut. In fact, the coffin was not even fully closed.

Feng Bujue walked through the door, but he did not hurry to open the coffin. Instead, he used his flashlight to shine around the room. He did come up with something. On one of the walls, he found another stanza to The Haunted Palace, and this time, it was written in blood.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,

Assailed the monarch’s high estate;

Ah, let us mourn! For never morrow

Shall dawn upon him, desolate!

And round about his home, the glory

That blushed and bloomed

Is but a dim-remembered story

Of the old time entombed.

"Hmm... It’s the fifth stanza, it seems," Feng Bujue mumbled after reading it.

The system audio came soon after, "Side quest updated."

And the quest detail became "Find all six The Haunted Palace. Current Progress: 3/6".

Feng Bujue walked over to the coffin. Holding the flashlight in one hand and his other gripping into a fist, like knocking on a door, he tapped on the coffin lid three times. "Hey, Miss Madeline, are you there?"

It was unclear where the man had gotten that name.

...

As time moved on, Invincible Champion’s Terror Points grew to fifteen percent and stabilized around that number. The reason for his panic was not because he ran into an actual monster but because, after searching around for a while, he could not find a way to leave the second floor.

Each corridor, each room, the paintings, lamps, and decorations looked so unfamiliar yet familiar at the same time.

Moss grew all over the stone walls, the dead trees that surrounded the house, and the large and rippling black reflection in the water. The air of danger and death seeped out of the water, walls, and deep within the house. Darkness consumed the space between the material and spirit worlds.

In the shapeless silence, the champion fell into the pond by the house. The heavy water swallowed him fully. Air bubbles escaped from his throat, but it nary made a ripple. The large house was like a silent observer, spectating the loss of another young life.

The last thing that was reflected in the eyes of this professional player... was the blood moon that was wearily sinking behind the horizon.

...

"Team Message: Invincible Champion has died. A plot item has been transferred."

When the system audio appeared, both Wang Tanzhi and Long Aomin were stunned.

"What the hell? A level fifteen professional player died just like that‽" Wang Tanzhi gasped. He opened the game menu to double check the information. As the system stated, the player name for Invincible Champion was grayed out, and the original ’Surviving’ status had changed to ’Dead’.

By then, the two had looked through many rooms, but they could not find any concrete evidence. Other than the few times when they came across weak points in the floor and traps, they had nothing.

"If we split up, we would have died from the traps that we encountered," Long Aomin said before adding, "I wonder if Brother Feng will run into any danger since he’s working alone."

"If it’s Brother Jue... you don’t need to worry. Since he suggested we split up, he will have considered the risk already," Wang Tanzhi said. "By the way, I glanced through the game manual when I was waiting for Brother Jue to come online, and it said that should a player die in game, then the items that he possessed will randomly appear next to one of his teammates."

Long Aomin had some experience in Team Mode, so he concurred. "Yes, I know that. Let’s look around us then."

The two-started searching, but although they did not find the letter, they did find a new stanza of the poem on the floor, covered by a pile of trash.

Wanderers in that happy valley,

Through two luminous windows, saw

Spirits moving musically

To a lute’s well-tunèd law,

Round about a throne where, sitting,

Porphyrogene!

In state his glory well befitting,

The ruler of the realm was seen.

"Side quest updated. Find all six The Haunted Palace. Current Progress: 4/6"